One of the most celebrated paintings in the Robert Lehman Collection, this jewel-like representation of the Annunciation is set in an architectural interior using one-point perspective to give the illusion of deeply recessed space. In the center, a row of square columns divides the monumental space occupied by the Angel Gabriel from the intimate bed-chamber of the Virgin. A drapery panel is drawn back, revealing the Virgin in a pose of humility. The panel was almost certainly commissioned as a private devotional image, not as part of a larger work. While the identity of the patron is not known, the painting was in the famed Barberini collection in Rome in the seventeenth century.